Architecture for cryptocurrency mining operation

ABSTRACT

The present invention is a modular, energy efficient structure for housing racks of computers specifically designed for mining Bitcoin assets. The fundamental principal towards an optimized mining facility design is to decrease electricity consumption as well as effective construction budget management, ensuring only appropriate business expenditures. The side benefits including improved stability of the facility computer network and electricity supply. The design concept is carried out through a cool/hot air segregation process, which results in controllable internal facilities temperatures, dust filtration and energy savings.

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority from U.S. Application No. 62/553,543,filed Sep. 1, 2017, the content of which is fully incorporated herein byreference.

BACKGROUND

Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, are mined by a process by whichtransaction information distributed within a so-called cryptocurrencynetwork is validated and stored on a ledger referred to as a blockchain.The process of validating transactions and committing them to theblockchain involves solving a series of specialized math problems. Theterm “mining” refers to the processing and confirmation of payments onthe cryptocurrency network. What makes the validation process forBitcoin different from traditional electronic payment networks is thatthere is no need for an issuing bank, an acquiring bank, merchantaccounts or mandatory centralized clearing houses, such as Visa andMasterCard, holding onto funds until they process transactions at theend of each day.

Bitcoin mining is a process that utilizes a long-running,computationally intensive computer program. In addition to running ontraditional computers, some participants have designed specializedBitcoin mining hardware that can process transactions and build blocksmuch more quickly and efficiently than regular computers. Each Bitcoinminer is competing with all the other miners on the network to be thefirst one to correctly assemble the outstanding transactions into ablock by solving those specialized math problems. In exchange forvalidating the transactions and solving these problems, Bitcoin minersare rewarded for all of the transactions they process. They receive feesattached to all of the transactions that they successfully validate andinclude in a block. In addition to transaction fees, miners also receivean additional award for each block they mine. This block reward is alsothe process by which new bitcoins are created, as specified by theBitcoin protocol.

Because the reward for mining blocks is so high, the competition to winthat reward is vigorous. At any moment, hundreds of thousands ofsupercomputers all around the world are competing to mine the next blockand win that reward. The Bitcoin network has gotten stronger andstronger over the past several years, growing by as much as 10 percentper month. In order to have an edge in this global competition, thehardware used for Bitcoin mining has undergone generational changes,starting with using the CPU of a personal computer. The CPU can performmany different types of calculations including Bitcoin mining, but isdesigned to be general purpose. Early miners soon discovered that thecalculations could be run faster and more efficiently using a graphicscard (GPU), which is a computer chip that handles complex 3D imagingalgorithms. Aside from being able to process Bitcoin's transactionsfaster and more efficiently, the graphics card setup in many desktop PCsmeans that more than one graphics card can be used per computer. Butthis still isn't the most power-efficient option, as both CPUs and GPUsare very efficient at completing many tasks simultaneously, but consumesignificant power to do so, whereas Bitcoin mining in essence just needsa processor that performs its cryptographic hash functionultra-efficiently.

This recognition led to the use of the Field Programmable Gate Array(FPGA), which is capable of doing cryptographic hash functions withvastly less demand for power. However, due to the reprogrammable natureof the chip, it had a significantly higher cost for a chip that solvedblocks at the same rate as a GPU. The benefit of using FPGAs is that thereduced power consumption means many more of the chips, once turned intomining devices, can be used alongside each other on a standard householdpower circuit.

As Bitcoin's adoption and value grows, the justification to produce morepowerful, power-efficient and economical per-chip devices warrants thesignificant engineering investments in order to develop the final andcurrent iteration of Bitcoin mining semiconductors: the ApplicationSpecific Integrated Circuit, or ASIC. ASICs are super-efficient chipswhose hashing power is multiple orders of magnitude greater than theGPUs and FPGAs that came before them. Succinctly, it's a custom Bitcoinengine capable of securing the network far more effectively than before.

Several Bitcoin mining chip manufacturers have focused on optimizing forefficiency, rather than total power, since mining is a veryenergy-intensive process. Because of the high energy costs for running apowerful Bitcoin miner, many operators have elected to build datacenters known as mining farms in locations with cheap electricity. Thesefacilities house many mining operations, and the requirements of thesefacilities are unlike any other computer facility in terms of powerconsumption and heat removal. The art is continuing to seek ways toimprove the architecture for such mining farms to improve efficiency andlower the power consumption of the process.

One of the most important criteria for efficient mining operation is theeffective control of internal facilities temperatures. Operationsgenerally realize an increase of 2.5% power consumption when hightemperatures are present in the operations environment. As such, highertemperatures significantly reduce the power consumed, so managing theheat dissipation of the miners (computers) is critically important.

For large capacity mining facilities, the most common heat dissipationtool is the use of suction fans to draw out high temperature air andreplace it with cooler air. Unfortunately, these suction fans consumelarge amount of electricity themselves. For example, a 3000 KWconventional mining facility requires forty-eight suction fans. Intotal, these suction fans consume 50 KW electricity, which is 1.5% ofthe mining site capacity.

Moreover, the single largest expense item associated with any miningfacility is the cost of the miners. Reducing miners' repair frequencyand miners' failure rate will result in increased return of investment.The key to extend miners' life span is dust filtration and humidityreduction. The present invention manages temperature control in themining farm complex and also incorporates three layers of dustfiltration so that the miners operate in a low humidity, minimal dustenvironment. The optimized mining facility design also reducesoperational overhead, increases the stability of computer network andelectricity supply of the mining site.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is a modular, energy efficient structure forhousing racks of computers specifically designed for miningcryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin assets. The fundamental principaltowards an optimized mining facility design is to decrease electricityconsumption as well as effective construction budget management,ensuring only appropriate business expenditures. The side benefitsincluding improved stability of the facility computer network andelectricity supply. The design concept is carried out through a cool/hotair segregation process, which results in controllable internalfacilities temperatures, dust filtration and energy savings.

The mining facility design of the present invention is a modularconstruction. Each module hosts a certain number of megawatts miningcapability. In each module, the intake air travels through three layersof dust filtration and is also cooled in this process. First are thedust filtration panels, followed by dust filtration covered watercooling curtains, concluding with a third layer of dust filtrationpanels to reach the front of the miners to keep the miners operating inoptimal temperatures. As the miners generate heat, the heat is ventedoutdoors via the back of the miners by exhaust fans.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the roof of themining facility is slanted. This design enlarges air intake volume anddecreases air outlet volume. Further, when the neighboring two modulesare placed back to back, the heat released from both modules createscurrents of air convection upwards, which in turn speeds up the heatdissipation.

These and other features of the present invention will best beunderstood with reference to the detailed description of the preferredembodiments, together with the drawings listed below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a cross sectional view of a module of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a side perspective view of adjacent modules in the miningfacility; and

FIG. 3 is a schematic view of a distribution cabinet and powertransformer of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The present invention is a structure for housing mining computers in acost-effective and energy efficient manner. A feature of the presentinvention is that the entire mining facility design is modular, and eachmodule 100 (FIG. 1, not to scale) hosts a certain number of megawattsmining capability. In each module, the intake air 101 travels throughthree layers of dust filtration and is also cooled in the process. Thefirst stage of filtration is dust panels 110, which removemacroparticles of dust, particulate, and the like. The second stage offiltration is water cooling curtains 120, that remove finer particlesand also lower the temperature of the air entering the module. In thefinal stage of filtration, a secondary layer of dust filtration panels130 capture microparticles of debris or dust that eluded the first twostages. These three stages of filtration for air entering the moduleskeep the miners 150 operating in optimal temperatures. Further, as theminers 150 generate heat 160, the heat is vented outdoors via the backof the miners by exhaust fans 170. The present invention results in areduction of miners 150 (computers) repair frequency as well as theminers' failure rate.

The single largest expense item associated with any mining facility isthe cost of the miners 150. Reducing miners' repair frequency andminers' failure rate results in an increased return of investment. Thekey to extend miners' life span is dust filtration and humidityreduction. The present invention optimizes the process by includingthree layers of dust filtration, so that the miners operate in lowhumidity, minimal dust environment. The optimized mining facility designalso reduces operational overhead, increasing the stability of computernetwork and electricity supply of the mining site.

Heat Dissipation Methodology

An optimum operational environment for miners includes a temperature ofbetween 20-30 degrees centigrade and a relative humidity of 30-60%. Thedesign of the present invention focuses on achieving this environmentregardless of the number of miners or the external surroundings.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention (FIG. 2, not toscale), the roof 108 of the module 100 is slanted. For example, in afirst preferred embodiment the air intake shutters 106 are 4 meters inheight and the heat outlet shutters 109 are 3.4 meters in height,oriented at an angle θ of 8.6 degrees to the horizontal. Inclining theroof enlarges the air intake area and decreases the air outlet area. Inaddition, neighboring modules are placed back to back so that thevented, heated air forms a confluence of rising air 160. The heatreleased from both modules creates a powerful current of upwardly movingair, which aids in the heat dissipation of heat adjacent the modules.

In a first preferred embodiment, the dust filtration panel 110 andcovered water cooling curtains 120 are positioned at 0.2 meters apart,and the dust filtration panel is about 2 meters away from the minerracks 150. Further, the miner racks 150 are located about 1-1.5 m awayfrom the exhaust fans 170 and the exhaust fans are 1.5 m×1.5 m, placed 1meter above ground. The spacing and arrangement provide the optimum andmost efficient use of the space while allowing for full filtration andmovement of air through the module 100.

The miners 150 generate significant amount of heat when computing, whichresults in increased room temperature inside the mining facility.Conventional suction fans used for cooling the space around the minerswill attract large amount of dust, create condensation, and is not veryeffective in drawing and releasing the heat to the outside environmentdue to the natural airflow outside. This results in overheating of theminers, especially the ones on the top layers of the racks. To overcomethis, the present invention includes a PVC panel 180 that is placedbehind the miners 150 to further segregate the generated heat from theintaking cool air. This segregation of cool air intake and heat outleteffectively prevents the heat from refluxing, and reduces the air intakearea. As a result, the running speed of the exhaust fans 170 and theheat fans in the miners can be adjusted down to save energy. Moreover,the reduced airflow minimizes the dust and condensation, which enablethe miners to operate smoothly.

The length and width of each mining module can be adjusted based on theproperty boundaries, electricity capacity and the number of installedminers. The optimal location of the miner racks is ⅔^(rd) of thedistance from the intake 106 and ⅓^(rd) of the distance to the exhaustfans 170. This configuration allocates the heat area to ⅓^(rd) and coolair area to ⅔^(rd) of the module. This proportional design allows theminer racks to be placed away from the water cooling curtain as much aspossible, so that the miners are operating in an appropriate relativehumidity. Furthermore, if the humility of the water cooling curtain istoo high, it can be adjusted down by adding additional dust filtrationpanels.

The recommended thickness of the PVC panels 180 is 0.5 cm. The panelsare carved out with venting holes 182 that are the same size as theminer exhaust fans to guide the heat to the heat release area. All powerjackets, electrical cables, network cables (not shown) are placed withincool air area. The design layout also maximizes the heat releasing areawhile reduce the heat that builds up in the heat release space.

In a preferred embodiment, the air intake shutters 106 are positioned atrespective side walls of the module. For windy and dusty areas, the airintake shutters are motorized for opening and closing using motor 112.This enables the reduction of dust intake when appropriate. In a firstpreferred embodiment, the first layer of dust filtration panels 110consists of 15 PPI coarse filtration material. The second layer of dustfiltration panels 130 consist of 35 PPI filtration cotton material. Thecombination of these layers has proven capable of filtering out thesmallest macroparticles and microparticles, respectively, of dust. It ispreferable that the filtration materials be washable for cleaning andreusable for improved efficiency.

Between the two dust filtration panels is the water cooling curtain 120.Water curtains are very effective air filtration devices, but their useincreases the humidity inside of the module. If the humidity inside istoo high, it will cause damage to the miners' circuit boards. Thus, careis recommended to limit the use of the water curtain to air temperaturesabove 30 degrees centigrade, as well as controlling the air intakevolume simultaneously to enhance the cooling effect.

In the preferred embodiment, the air intake area shutters 106 are 4meters high and the racks 152 of miners are 2.9 meters high. This ratioensures that the cool air intake is sufficient to avoid negativepressure on the miners 150, which could lead to overheating. The modules100 also include windows 105 that are placed directly above the minerracks 152 for reversing the heat back to the room. In winter or coldweather, if the incoming air 101 temperature is too low (causing theindoor temperature drops below 5 degrees centigrade), the miners 150won't be able to operate normally. In this situation, the air intakeshutters 106 are opened slightly, and the windows 105 above the racks152 are opened so that the heat flows back through the module 100.

The design of the module 100 includes various calculations dependentupon the number and type of miners. A determining factor is the totalpower consumption of all equipment, which then determines the size ofthe switch cabinets and wires. For example, if there are 180 ant S9mining machines, 1.4 KW of power consumption per machine times 180machines equates with 252 KW of total power. In order to determine thewiring requirements, it must first be checked to see whether the outputof the power supply transformer 310 meets the power consumptionstandard, and then one must calculate the length of the wires 305 (FIG.3) from the transformer to the distribution cabinet 300. Either thealuminum core wire or the copper core wire can be used. For aluminumwire core, 300 M² aluminum core single strand wires are used, 4 intotal, A, B and C 3-phase live wires and 1 null wire. The cables usedbetween the distribution cabinet 300 and the racks 152 are 16 M²national standard copper wires (the copper wires are divided into3-phase live wires and available in four colors: A, B, C and null).

The cabinet 300 has its own requirements depending upon the number ofminers 150 to be located on each rack 152. For a preferred distributionswitch cabinet 300, there is a built-in 630 amp air switch, electricitymeter and copper bus bar (for convenience, 18 groups of copper wires areconnected to the air switch). The busbar used by the guiderail socket israted 80 amp, and the guiderail socket used is 10 amp triangle socket.The air switch is rated 80 amp, and each air switch and 11 sockets forma group that includes 10 mining machines (one socket is left idle forbackup).

To achieve 3-phase balance, the number of miners 150 occurs in multiplesof 3. Without the three machine set, an imbalance in the three phasesystem could lead to a high temperature failure in the null wire. A lossof the null wire due to burnt-out at the joint could result in seriousdamage to the electrical equipment. Further, connection of a groundingwire to an adequate ground must be measured, as a failure to adequatelygrounding or ineffective ground resistance could result in damage to themachines due to electrostatics. It is further preferable that the powersupply of the lamps, water curtain motors shutter motor, and networkequipment be separated from that of the mining machines.

Power, Quantity and Conversion Efficiency

To select the cables and cooling equipment, the estimated power is therated power of each mining machines 150 deployed times a factor of 1.2.Certain redundancy is needed to prevent malfunction of the powersupplies during use. In this case, one power supply is allotted for onemining machine. The power cord is sized 0.75 mm² or above, and thelength is determined by the placement distance of the power supplies.The power cord socket is the 3-pin socket (national standard). Theoutput wire interface is a PCIE-6pin to make sure that the power hassufficient output wires. For instance, when S7 and S9 are used, thereshall be at least 10 PCIE-6pin.

Network

Every 500 mining machines may be driven by 1 M bandwidth and so on (toaccess external websites, additional bandwidth shall be provided so asnot to affect the mining operations of the mining machines). It isrecommended that 10 M bandwidth be used for no more than 2000 miningmachines. The flow used by a mining machine per month is about 500 M. Ifthe wireless web access card is used, the flow needed shall becalculated based on the number of mining machines.

For connection of the optical fiber, it is recommended that dualnetworks are adopted to reduce the losses resulting from malfunction ofa single network. The type of optical fiber is selected whose uploadrate equals the download rate. In the selection of routing, both softrouting and enterprise hard routing are possible. As to the functionalrequirements for the switch equipment, it is preferred that networkadministration enabled switches are utilized by both Layer 2 and Layer 3switching. It is better that the switch be connected downward by twolevels so as to reduce the loss of network packets due to multi-levelswitching and prevent web access failure of the batch equipment due todamage of the higher level switch. Assuming there are 180 S9 miningmachines, since the number is not large, there is no need for VLANdivision for the 3-level switches and the only connection of switches bysoft routing or enterprise routing is enough. Four 48-port switches oreight 24-port switches may be adopted.

There are a number of possible network connections for the miners usedwith the present invention, including:

Operator: domestic dual line, dedicated Unicom telecommunication line,etc.

Firewall: access to operator's dedicated line and configuration of trustareas.

Core switch: VLAN division (all VLAN), initiate the 3-layer mode; forthe uplink port, the IP is connected with the firewall; for the downlinkport, the trunk is connected to the access switch and the VLAN gatewaysare configured.

Access switch: VLAN division each access belongs to one VLAN, accessmode configured for port of the mining machine, trunk configured foruplink and default routing is configured to be directed to the coreswitch.

Management switch: VLAN division, access mode configured for the serverport, trunk configured for uplink and default routing is configured tobe directed to core switch.

Server: use the esxi host system and create the virtual machine (dhcp,monitoring system, etc.) and dhcp service.

Frame & cabinet: number the frames in advance, establish thecorresponding relationship with the switches and maintain the table.

Mining machine: the mining machine is connected to the switch andactivates the DHCP function.

Network cable: all cables are labeled at two ends (switch ports, etc.).

The wires shall be copper core wires to minimize mining machineinterruption due to inadequate port voltages.

Maximum efforts shall be used not to keep the main network cable fromthe router to the switch in parallel with the main cable at a shortdistance (to minimize the interference caused to network transmission bythe magnetic field generated due to large current).

While the present invention has been described in terms of one or morepreferred embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is notlimited to such preferred embodiments or the depictions herein. Rather,one of ordinary skill in the art will readily understand and appreciatethat many modifications and substitutions can be made to the foregoingembodiments, and the invention is intended to include all suchmodifications and substitutions.

What is claimed is:
 1. An architecture for cryptocurrency mining, comprising: a plurality of modules separated into a warm section and a cool section, each module including an intake shutter, a macroparticle filtration system, an air temperature altering filtration system, and a microparticle filtration system in the cool section; a panel separating the warm section and the cool section, the panel having apertures; a plurality of computers within the modules adapted to perform calculations for mining cryptocurrencies, the plurality of computers arranged to be positioned in the cool section and eject heat directly to the warm section through the apertures; exhaust fans positioned in the warm section for moving warm air out of the modules; whereby modules are arranged so that the moving warm air from adjacent modules enter a common current of upwardly moving air outside of the modules.
 2. The architecture for cryptocurrency mining of claim 1, further comprising a motorized intake shutter for controlling an opening of the intake shutter.
 3. The architecture for cryptocurrency mining of claim 1, further comprising a water curtain positioned between the macroparticle filtration system and the microparticle filtration system.
 4. The architecture for cryptocurrency mining of claim 3, where the water curtain comprises the air temperature altering filtration system.
 5. The architecture for cryptocurrency mining of claim 1, further comprising a window above the plurality of computers.
 6. The architecture for cryptocurrency mining of claim 1, wherein the modules include a roof having an inclination with the horizontal of between 7 and 12 degrees.
 7. The architecture for cryptocurrency mining of claim 1, wherein the plurality of computers is coupled to a distribution cabinet.
 8. The architecture for cryptocurrency mining of claim 7, further comprising a power supply transformer.
 9. The architecture for cryptocurrency mining of claim 1, wherein the apertures in the panel are of a size equal to a size of fans in the plurality of computers.
 10. The architecture for cryptocurrency mining of claim 1, wherein the panel is comprised of polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
 11. The architecture for cryptocurrency mining of claim 1, wherein the module maintains an internal temperature of between 20-30 degrees centigrade and a relative humidity of air inside the module of between 30-60%.
 12. The architecture for cryptocurrency mining of claim 1, wherein the plurality of computers are positioned two thirds of a distance between the intake shutter and the exhaust fans. 